Research line 1: Conflicts, subjects, rights
This line has as its axis the reflection around conflicts, one of the fundamental forms by which social relations unfold and are transformed, based on the asymmetries that constitute them. Intrinsic to social life, conflicts are here considered, on the one hand, in their range of manifestations, languages and in the loci on which they focus and, on the other hand, in the social responses they provoke in the different spheres of social life, analyzed under multiple lenses: theoretical, empirical, and normative.
The objects of reflection in this line comprise both the daily conflicting relations and the collective actions that express them, including violent forms. Thus, attention is paid to moral disagreements and tension around the social differences inscribed in the body, in religious practices and concepts, in sexuality, in gender, race and ethnic relations, as well as to social and cultural movements, to distributive and interest conflicts, and to protests of various orders that bring to light the constitutive conflicts of social life.
Institutional responses that support varied forms of power are analyzed, both at the political and judicial level and in the cultural level in a broad way, also considering political mobilizations either by the public recognition of collective identities, by the defense of convictions, by the expansion and implementation of established rights, but also by the retraction or non-expansion of these rights. Mobilizations that, in turn, affect the various institutional forms of care, health, public safety, and justice, objects of this line of research as social instruments to deal with conflicts and repair damages. The analysis of the State crosses the reflection, as producer, regulator and manager of conflicts.
Research line 2: Thought, knowledge, expression
The theoretical elaboration and conduction of research in this line cross a broad spectrum that comprises different traditions of thought and expressive forms, including art in several forms and genres. They encompass the current configuration of the means of information and communication, in the diversity of cultural and technological environments of contemporary society.
Investigations on the forms of knowledge production include the articulation of the historical tradition of social and political thought with social and political theory. Therefore, they point to the existence of hegemonic and non-hegemonic, central and peripheral forms, evidencing the asymmetries of their epistemological assumptions, including several conceptions of the relationship between text and context. This line is also influenced by ontology and epistemology of indigenous, traditional populations and other non-hegemonic collectives, seeking to think about their intellectual status symmetrically in relation to major Western traditions.
Regarding cultural processes related to cinema, visual arts, theater, music, and literature, research requires a thorough effort of conceptual and inventive methodological foundation, in view of the combination of rapid technological changes with the multiplication of forms of expression on a local, national, and global scale. The emergence of different actors and institutions in the context of creation, production, dissemination, reception – and also the issues related to propensity – offer a set of complex and multifaceted objects.
Research line 3: Territories, work, public policies
This line of research focuses in discussing how inequalities and differences are expressed in the Territories (cities, suburb, borders, socio-technical environments, nationalities); in Labor (labor relations, technologies, social classes, trade union movement) and in Public Policies (social protection, education, environment, poverty, affirmative policies). It seeks to articulate different instances of social analysis approaches based on political, economic, cultural, ideological, symbolic, and space-time dimensions (local-regional-global, singular-general, national-world).
A plurality of issues around these thematic axes is addressed. From the perspective of the Territories, some aspects are emphasized, namely: spatial segregation in cities, vulnerabilities and exposure to social and environmental risks; sociability and social practices in the urban space and its multiple expressions; migration processes and formal markets; juvenile, ethnic and national identities and those that cross counterculture movements and their means of resistance; ways of life of indigenous, quilombola, and traditional population; and socio-spatial and technological arrangements as forms of mediation of social life. In the same perspective, Labor is the guide to qualify some issues, namely: dynamics of the labor market; work relationships and processes; productive restructuring; professional qualifications; the ways of organizing the workforce in several socioeconomic sectors; the ways of management and work control; the sexual division of labor; the forms of resistance of workers to their living and working conditions; labor policies and rights; and finally the training and the class cultures. Regarding the Public Policy axis, the analysis extends to research on social security and protection systems, mobilizing analytical categories such as Welfare state, poverty, and citizenship. It also dialogues with research whose institutional, federal dimensions, and effects on socioeconomic, regional and environmental inequalities are present, in addition to political and educational systems, the reconfiguration of emerging and non-institutionalized political practices, political parties, and cultures.